Butte semi-weekly miner., 1887-04-02

There is scarcely man from Dumfries to
Ayr who cannot recite you almost every
poem that Burns ever wrote, and the tiniest
lad or lass will point out to you the braes Of
Ballochmyle, the castle of Montgomery, or
the banks o. Doom, and tell you which one
Of Bobbie Burns many sweethearts lived
there.
EVERYTHING IN ORDER.
Everything seems to be in order in Scot
land, especially in the west countree. We
went through miles Of swelling land where
the fields were newly plowed, and every
furrow was as straight as an arrow. The
hedges were as trim as in England. There
was not blade of cultivated grass awry, and
the humble, simple little cottages, plain to
the last degree, all alike and without one
single attempt at architectural ornament,
were each and all as clean, well kept and
fresh as good housewives dresser. Even
the moors at the edge of the horizon, not yet
purple with the August heat, looked trim
and swept, and anything but wild.
The train pulled up with little snort
about in the afternoon, and we found our
selves at Ayr. Another change of accent
The man Of Ayr speaks as differently from
the man of Dumfriesshire as Dumfriesshire
is different from the man of Carlisle.
One does not wonder SO much that Bobby
Burns became poet when one gets into his
pretty, fresh, green little country. 1t is the
most inspiring little land in the world, with
its tricksy skies, its blue moors, its moist
greenness and its world of traditions. One
looks at the hardy peasants toiling in the
fields, and it all seems very poetical indeed.
One can easily pick a "Highland Mary' or a
'bonny Jean" from among those large
limbed peasant women at distance, since
distance its that lends enchantment to the
view.
But the wonder of it all, the marvel Of
this peasant poets soul only comes home to
you as you bend your head to enter the door
Of his lowly dwelling, his cottage hut-no
name could be too simple for its simplicity.
As you pass through the inevitable turnstile
you find that it has but the two rooms of
every Scotch PEASANTS home, ''but the
hoose'' and "ben the hoose." "Ben the
hoose'' is what the old time Yankees used to
call the keepin' room. "But the hoose" is
where all the living seems to be done. For
the mothers short he'd with its cotton cur
tains stands in one corner, the tall, old eight
day clock stands silent at its foot, as if, bav-
Burns, it had done its life work and stopped.
For these old Scotch clocks never wear out.
There was well filled dresser in another cor
ner, and from the crane in the great open
fireplace some black pets still hung. There
were some old tables and chairs which Bobbie
had mutilated with his own unconscious
poets hand, and the sinking stone floor
was the same over which his baby feet tod
died long before any one could know Of his
divine gift.
THE BIG RELIC ROOM
The big relic room is filled with mementos
Of Burns, many Of them so slight that only
the most loving hand would have collected
them, for what mementos could there be in
the short and simple annals of peasants
lifei Being poet, his manuscripts are his
chief relics, and many of them are here
under glass. There are quantities of poems
to Burns, many Of them-the best of them,
indeed-by American poets. Strangely
enough, the poem by Fitz Greene Halleck-
one Of the best Burns poems ever written,
though it seems to be an unfamiliar one-is
not in the collection. The chairs occupied
by Tam O'Shanter and Souter Johnny upon
that melancholy occasion when they "boozed
at the nappy," occupy raised dais at the
end Of the room, and no one less immortal
than this worthy twain has ever been allowed
to occupy them since these gentlemen passed
into verse.
The cottage keeper, a shrewd. rosy Scotch
man, with as merry an eye as ever twinkled,
finding us an enthusiastic group, read "Tam
O'Shanter" to us from the original manu-
script. How deliciously it sounded, rolling
freshly from the lips of native Scotchman
there upon its very own ground and with
the very own handwriting of the poet before
our eyes, with Alloway and the banks O.
Doom just out the window, and all the pretty
country that he enchanted rising up around
US. He had a turn for humor, our Scotch
reader, and when he came to those passages
which in these days would be called Swim.
burneian, but in those days were only Burn
ian, he rolled his merry eyes drolly, to see if,
being but stupid Americans, we took the
point.-"Betsy B." in The Argonaut